[Nattering Nabob]

It's always amazing to see this woman find another excuse to curry up to foreigners and put down her own country. I bet you won't hear Putin talking about Russia's guilt in the invasion of Poland.

Admitting mistakes is a strength and not a weakness...

[Annatar]

The invasion was not a mistake in the first place. If she had apologized for the bombing of civilian targets or the Einsatzgruppen that would have been fine, but she had to go out and apologize for a legitimate invasion.

[GandalfTheGrey]

What makes no sense? That if the Germans had have achieved overlordship of Europe they would be celebrating this day? The Germans (by and large) were more than happy to go along with Nazi plans for domination until the destruction they visited was repaid with interest on their beloved Fatherland.

Are you serious? so how exactly should they be acting now? Presumably they should be gnashing their teeth and raving about the injustice of their defeat? Either way they will be condemned.

Bollocks. The starting point for the vast majority of crimes was the invasion of the USSR and Germany's subsequent failure to quickly defeat the Soviet Union

The start of WWII, and therefore the start of every single attrocity that happened because of that war, started with the invasion of Poland. Thats all there is to it. How can you be so naive? How do you suppose Germany could launch an invasion of USSR without conquering Poland first? Bit of a logistical issue there Besides you completely ignore the attrocities that happened in Poland all through the war - even before the invasion of the USSR.

[Smilin' Dave]

-Poland locked up 16.000 Germans in concentration camps around the area of Pozen in the early twenties.
-Poland evicted all Germans who came to the Polish ruled regions after 1908 in 1922.
-Poland fired all German officials and closed half of all German schools and universities and bilingual education was suspended.
-Poland forced the Germans to decide between Germany and Austria or Poland, and evicted those who chose the former in 1925.
-Poland annulled business treaties with Germans and banned them from state-assisted medical care.
-Sporadic violence against German businesses and farms.

1. I guess you might have forgotten, but the Germans fought a war with the Poles into the early 1920s. Remember that context thing we were discussing?
2. How many of these acts were those of private citizens rather than the Polish state?
3. How does all this stuff from the 1920s justify a war at the end of the 1930s?
4. There is still this bizarre double standard, where you state that Poland can do whatever it wants... but if it does, it deserves retaliation.

Poland should do whatever it wants but not play the poor victim when it reaps what I sows

I suppose this ‘we didn’t do anything wrong, I am a victim of anyone who disagrees’ routine of yours is better? You still seem to insist there was a legitimate grievance, which requires that someone play the victim, making this whole discussion odd in the extreme.

Polish treatment of its German minority was unbearable for Germany

So why did the Nazis opt for a non-aggression pact with Poland in 1934, which IIRC they didn’t officially renounce until 1939?

the treatment of its Orthodox minorities was unbearable for Russia.

Yes, I’m sure the atheists in the Politburo had a hard time sleeping at night knowing that orthodox Christians suffered somewhere. You are not making sense again.

Keeping an entirely Polish Poland as a buffer-state between Germany and the USSR would have been even better but that sadly was not on Hitler's mind.

This is not a sandbox for your grandiose political dreams, this is a discussion about what really happened.

To prevent or at least delay a German invasion.

According to you, invasion was legitimate to defend the German minority, so why would the Poles accept an arrangement that would cripple them in the event of a supposedly inevitable war?

It's always the elite that justifies war.

This isn’t just any elite, this was a particularly small section of the German elite.

The invasion of Poland did neither cause nor necessitate the invasion of the Soviet Union.

The invasion of Poland was a necessary prerequisite of Lebensraum, and in a more concrete fashioned, Poland was in the way of a war Hitler thought inevitable. I would also argue that the invasion of Poland did cause the war with the Soviets. It follows that having taken Poland, Nazi Germany would be brought into range of the Soviets, a position that necessarily provoked tensions. The inevitable Allied intervention lead to the logic of an expanded war, which in turn promoted German plans for expanding the Axis into Eastern Europe. This in turn brings the Nazis into a more precarious, tense, situation with the Soviets. The final straw was the dependence on eastern resources, which were too close to be considered safe by what was essentially a paranoid leader.

The evolution of the Einsatzgruppen was not a well-thought out process. The Einsatzgruppen got the order to kill based on ethnicity when Hitler spontaneously decided to kill the Jews of the USSR as partisans.

this evolution would never have taken place in ANY capacity had German stuck to its own borders.

The invasion was not a mistake in the first place.

Without the invasion of Poland, Germany would not have had to endure six years of war, defeat, occupation and division. It was a ridiculous action, without logical justification.

[Annatar]

1. I guess you might have forgotten, but the Germans fought a war with the Poles into the early 1920s. Remember that context thing we were discussing?

Well, locking up citizens in concentration camps is okay then.

How many of these acts were those of private citizens rather than the Polish state?

Violence against Germans was committed by private citizens, the rest was state action.

3. How does all this stuff from the 1920s justify a war at the end of the 1930s?

When you have already exhausted any form of tyranny short of murder in the 1920's, there's not much more to do in the 1930's, is there?

4. There is still this bizarre double standard, where you state that Poland can do whatever it wants... but if it does, it deserves retaliation.

That's not at all a double standard. Poland is perfectly within its right to do whatever it wants but has no right to not get invaded when it pisses its neighbours off.

You still seem to insist there was a legitimate grievance, which requires that someone play the victim, making this whole discussion odd in the extreme.

Germans in Poland were the victim of oppression, I don't know how you can possibly deny that. Whether that oppression was enough to justify war is a different story.

So why did the Nazis opt for a non-aggression pact with Poland in 1934, which IIRC they didn’t officially renounce until 1939?

Because Germany wasn't ready to go to war in 1934 and Hitler still hoped he could gain Polish assistance in a strike against the USSR which is why he later offered Poland an anti-communist alliance.

Yes, I’m sure the atheists in the Politburo had a hard time sleeping at night knowing that orthodox Christians suffered somewhere.

It's not the fact that they were Orthodox christians but the fact that they were peoples whose traditional protector Russia was that motivated Russia. If you think Stalin was motivated by Marxism-Leninism in his foreign policy, you are gravely mistaken.

According to you, invasion was legitimate to defend the German minority, so why would the Poles accept an arrangement that would cripple them in the event of a supposedly inevitable war?

Poland never had a chance of defending itself again Germany anyway. Poland's only hope was for the French and British to save it in the case of war and delaying a German attack would have helped the British and French to get their act together.

The invasion of Poland was a necessary prerequisite of Lebensraum, and in a more concrete fashioned, Poland was in the way of a war Hitler thought inevitable.

Why did Hitler offer an alliance to Poland earlier when he thought war with Poland was inevitable?

Without the invasion of Poland, Germany would not have had to endure six years of war, defeat, occupation and division.

Nonsense. Germany would have never had to endure any of those things if it had not invaded the USSR.

It was a ridiculous action, without logical justification.

It was a perfectly reasonable move as it protected German citizens abroad and brought former German lands back under German control.

[Thompson_NCL]

I would say the unprovoked invasion of Poland would be a good start as to why there should be guilt attached to WWII for the Germans (whether this should continue now is another story). So poor was the German case for war they had to manufacture the Gleiwitz incident.

Then the individuals involved in making those decisions are guilty, not their children.

[Smilin' Dave]

Well, locking up citizens in concentration camps is okay then.

I never said that, and this accusation is a bit rich coming from some guy who thinks war and mass executions (as long as they are 'political') are perfectly acceptable, and anyone acknowledging guilt is trying to ‘bring the country down’.

Whether that oppression was enough to justify war is a different story.

Given that the result was an attempt to obliterate Poland politically and socially, I should think not. I also don’t think the end result, conscripting the ethnic Germans into the Wehrmacht to fight in the Soviet Union, followed by mass deportation at wars end, really did them much good.

Because Germany wasn't ready to go to war in 1934 and Hitler still hoped he could gain Polish assistance in a strike against the USSR which is why he later offered Poland an anti-communist alliance.

In other words Annatar, the Nazis didn't actually give a fuck about the German citizens in Poland beyond their use as a political tool. In other words, the invasion as it took place was not legitimate because of this supposed problem, because that wasn't why the invasion took place. If in your grandiose dream conquest of the Soviet Union was a good geopolitical goal, then you might have an angle there, but you seem to reject that too.

If you think Stalin was motivated by Marxism-Leninism in his foreign policy, you are gravely mistaken.

I've never cited Marxist-Leninist ideology as a Soviet motivator. If you think Stalin was motivated solely by a desire to protect the 'orthodox' population (given that this population was subsequently split into ethnically derived states, not religious groupings), you are also gravely mistaken.

Poland never had a chance of defending itself again Germany anyway. Poland's only hope was for the French and British to save it in the case of war and delaying a German attack would have helped the British and French to get their act together.

Anglo-French support would only have been triggered by a German invasion. Thus, the Poles needed a way to receive arms, thus delaying their defeat. Your reasoning again does not make sense. You ‘reasonable’ solution really only seems to suit the aims of the Germans.

Nonsense. Germany would have never had to endure any of those things if it had not invaded the USSR.

If you had bothered to read the whole piece, you would see how invasion of Poland made the invasion of the USSR inevitable in every way.

You can have the last word if you wish, this ‘debate’ is going nowhere.

[starman2003]

The Germans should stop feeling guilty about WWII; they have nothing to feel guilty about.

I disagree with the second part but still agree with the first. Sure, they did wrong. But that was two-thirds of a century ago. Look at all the things that have happened since then--the great space feats, the computer age; why keep dwelling on that morbid old stuff? Plenty of other countries committed aggression and atrocities without constantly getting needled about them. No doubt, Germany is singled out for special opprobrium because it opposed those with great clout today. What if the nazis had overrun some country in sub-saharan Africa, and proceeded to exterminate millions of people from some obscure tribe. Do you think the media would interminably remind us of that? It would've been forgotten overnight, and most people would never have heard of it. Or cared, if they did.

[Kman]

Germans that where not alive during WW2 should not feel guilty, I think its ok they recognize their country did something wrong, but it can go to far also, I dont think its healthy to have a country that basicly hates itself.

[Thunderhawk]

What if the nazis had overrun some country in sub-saharan Africa, and proceeded to exterminate millions of people from some obscure tribe. Do you think the media would interminably remind us of that? It would've been forgotten overnight, and most people would never have heard of it. Or cared, if they did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_Genocide

[William_H_Dougherty]

I am of a few thoughts on this.

I approve of the "German State" expressing a responsibility for the war. It is really the flip side to what we do, our "States" take a definate pride in the liberation of Europe (and some people still celebrate V-E day!).

But I use the word "state" here because Kman, in his usual way, has raised an important point: to what extent does the current generation of germans have a "guilt" for this? When the average 20-30 year old German is at least 2 generations removed from the war (i.e. even their parents were mostly born after the war), it is difficult for me to accept that the demographic group of people known as "German" are collectively responsible for each and every atrocity committed in their name. And it gets more ridiculous the more you consider it. The "Gross Deutchland" created by Hitler existed outside the borders of the German State itself, which was one of the reasons the death camps were located predominantly outside the German State itself (i.e. occupied Poland, etc.); so that the SS could have free reign (something that they didn't have within Germany itself until July 1944).

So the questions we'd have to ask and aswer are: Are the Austrian-Germans or Sudetenland-Germans responsible for atrocities committed in the name of "Gross Deutchland"? Are the people who voted against Hitler during the last election responsible for atrocities committeed (over 50%)? Are people of German descent who lived in North America at the time responsible (considering many of these were interned at the time, our "State" certainly thought so to some extent)? The concept of collective and generational guilt is very, very amorphous.

So, like with Canada's recent Apology to the Native Populations for their treatment, I approve that they are simply awknowledging a historical wrong and the "state" is taking responsibility for it. I would hope that as time goes one people get a little bit more sympathetic to the sufferring of the German people under the Nazis though.

I wonder if they have an equivalent of veterans day? It just seems wrong that so many German soliders lost their lives because of the actions of politicians and they are treated as anathema.

I was at a Rememberence Day event a few years ago, and the Legion had invited all the German vets in the area to attend and allowed them to wear their medals. They were quite shocked because they said that wasn't allowed back in Germany, at least when they used to lived there...

- WHD